How often have you heard the question, “what would you do if you won a billion dollars”?

Sometimes it’s easy to answer with a Simple, “save it,” or “invest it.” Or perhaps you’re more truthful than most and would say something like  “I would finally buy a nice car”

We all have ideas of what we think we would do with the money, but let’s ask the question again a little differently. If you were told you won 1 billion dollars, what would you do in the first five minutes?

What would you do in the first hour? What would you do the first day? What would the first week look like?

Questions that get into the actual practicality of what you would do.

I was once again listening to an episode of Office Hours the other day and they said something that struck me. Something to the effect of, “you don’t deserve it unless you know what you’d do with it when you had it.”

It wasn’t in relation to money, but it still was an eye-opener for me.

What practical steps would you actually take with a billion dollars? It’s easy to say something like “I would invest it.” But how? Where would you invest it? Do you even know how to invest? Would you ask a friend who knows about investing? If you saved it, would you put it all into your bank? Do you know if you’re allowed to go deposit a billion dollars into a bank?

These are questions I don’t know the answer to. If I don’t have a plan for what I’m going to do with something before I get it, it’s going to be harder to figure out how to use it.

There’s a subtle difference though in this vs the “just in case” learning method. I’ve talked before about the “just in case” vs “just in time” learning. A topic I’ve heard much in the Praxis world. The idea that you should learn when you need to learn, don’t learn in just because you might need to know it someday.

The ideas are different because you’re not memorizing what you would do with a billion dollars, you’re just thinking practically. Let thoughts like this go through your mind. Think about hard things. You don’t even always have to study for it. Just prepare in your mind for what you’re going to do.

Sometimes being spontaneous can come from extra planning.